Chapter two: Slumborns
The 21st century was an era of madness. A time when the world twisted itself into knots, bending reality until nothing made sense. Men became women. Women became men. People loved their pets more than their own children, treating dogs like sons and cats like daughters. But the most unbelievable thing, the detail that made historians of the New World shake their heads in disgust, was that men had once ruled the planet.
Feminism had existed, yes. Women had fought, protested, and bled for equality. But no matter how loud they screamed, men still sat at the top. They controlled everything, governments, armies, money. They shaped the world with their greed, their pride, their endless hunger for power.
Then came the Flare Virus.
Created by men as a weapon, meant to make them stronger, it instead burned through humanity like a wildfire. Cities fell. Governments collapsed. The world drowned in chaos. And when the dust settled, a group of women rose from the ashes. They had watched. They had waited. And when the time came, they took control.
Their decision was simple: Men could not be trusted with power.
They ruled by impulse, by violence, by the need to conquer. They had built empires only to burn them down. They had made the Flare, and then they died by it. So the women did not ask for equality. They did not ask for balance.
They took everything.
Now, five hundred years later, the world belongs to them.
This is the 26th century, where men are nothing but weeds in the cracks of the world. Filthy things meant to work, to obey, to break. They are laborers, servants, pets. Tools for work. Tools for pleasure. Tools for whatever their betters demand.
And the women?
They are the protectors of civilization. The last guardians of order. The rightful rulers of a world that should have been theirs from the start.
In the slums of Astra City, where the air smells of rust and old sweat, Damon wakes to another day of survival. His body ached from yesterday's labor. His hands were rough, his skin marked with scars from a life spent under the Matriarchs' boots.
Damon sat up, his muscles was stiff. The floor beneath him was hard and the thin blanket barely enough to keep the cold out. Outside, others do the same, their movements slow, their faces blank. There is no morning chatter. No laughter. Only the quiet sounds of men preparing for another day of labor.
Outside, the sky was still dark. The sun had not yet risen over Astra City, but the slumborns do not wait for light. They are expected to work at first bell, and tardiness is punished without mercy.
Damon pulled on his worn tunic, the fabric rough against his skin. He glanced at the corner where Sage was still fast asleep, his younger half-brother still curled under his own threadbare blanket. For a moment, Damon considered waking him, but he hesitated. He was deciding whether to let him sleep a little longer. The day will be hard enough.
But he decided against it.
Sage? Sage... Sage! Wake up!"
Damon's voice cracked with urgency as he shook his shoulders. The bunker's dim lighting cast long shadows across Sage's motionless form. Damon pushed harder, the panic rising in his throat like bile. Still nothing. Not even a twitch of his eyelids or the slightest shift in breathing. It was unnatural - the kind of sleep that resembled death more than rest.
Damon's calloused fingers pressed against Sage's neck, searching for a pulse. The steady throb beneath his fingertips brought only partial relief. This wasn't normal sleep. This was the heavy, drugged unconsciousness of someone who'd learned to shut down completely to escape their reality. A defense mechanism forged in the slums, where sometimes not being present was the only way to survive another day.
"Damn it, Sage," Damon muttered, running a hand through his own matted hair.
He could try slapping him, but the last time he'd done that, Sage had nearly broken his nose in his sleep-fogged panic. The memory made Damon's face ache in phantom pain.
The bunker, more a metal coffin than living quarters, suddenly felt suffocating. Five meters by three, with ceilings so low Damon couldn't stand at his full height. The walls bore the scratches and stains of countless desperate men who'd occupied this space before them. The air tasted of stale sweat and the metallic tang of the filtration system that hadn't been properly serviced in decades.
Damon's bare feet slapped against the cold floor as he crossed to the terminal. The ancient control panel flickered with dim orange lights, its surface worn smooth by generations of desperate hands. His finger hovered over the red button, the emergency purge release. It was a cruel way to wake someone, but dawn patrol would be making their rounds soon, and being late to the work lines meant public correction at best, the pits at worst.
The alarm shattered the bunker's silence like glass. A piercing, oscillating shriek designed to trigger primal panic. Simultaneously, the doors hissed open, unleashing a wave of oppressive heat and the stench of the slums - rotting waste, burning chemicals, and beneath it all, the ever-present iron smell of blood that never quite washed from the streets.
Sage's body jerked as if electrocuted. His eyes flew open, pupils dilated to black pools, already scanning for threats before his consciousness fully caught up. He rolled to his feet in one fluid motion, muscles coiled like springs, fists raised in a fighter's stance. His chest heaved with ragged breaths, sweat already beading on his forehead from both the sudden heat and the adrenaline flooding his system.
Damon hit the button again, cutting off the alarm and sealing the doors. The sudden silence rang louder than the noise had.
"Calm down, it's just me, buddy," Damon said, keeping his voice low and steady.
He approached Sage like one would a wild animal, slowly, palms visible, making no sudden movements. The bunker's single overhead light flickered, casting stuttering shadows that made Sage's gaunt face appear even more hollowed out.
Damon could see the exact moment recognition flooded Sage's eyes, followed immediately by shame. The way Sage's shoulders slumped made Damon's chest tighten. This wasn't just morning grogginess. The way Sage's hands trembled as he lowered them, the way his breath hitched - these were the signs of someone who'd spent too many nights waking to violence, too many dawns expecting pain.
"Had to get you up somehow," Damon said, forcing a grin that didn't reach his eyes.
He reached out slowly, giving Sage every opportunity to pull away, and squeezed his shoulder. The bone felt too prominent beneath his fingers. Neither of them had eaten properly in weeks.
"Dawn patrol's due any minute. You know how they love making examples of stragglers."
"Damon? What... where am I? What's going on?" Sage gasped, his chest rising and falling rapidly like he'd just run a mile. His eyes darted around the cramped bunker, not quite focusing yet.
Damon kept his voice soft but firm. "It's okay. Just me. You're not in the wasteland anymore. You're safe here with me. But we need to move, dispatch time."
He watched as Sage's breathing began to slow, the wild look in his eyes fading.
"Oh... work time? Did I sleep too long?" Sage rubbed his face with both hands, the last traces of panic leaving his body. Damon took this as his cue to kneel beside him, close enough to offer comfort but not so close to crowd him.
"Yeah, we've got to go now. Unless we want those matrons dragging us out by our hair." Damon tried to make it sound like a joke, but they both knew the truth behind it. The matrons didn't ask twice.
"Right. Let me get ready." Sage gave a tired nod. Damon backed away to give him space, his own back pressing against the cold metal wall of their tiny living space.
Sage pulled off his torn shirt in one quick motion. His body told the story of slum life, every muscle sharply defined from endless labor, his skin stretched tight over hard-earned strength. In Astra's slums, men didn't get fat. They got strong or they died. The constant work, the scarce food, the punishments, all of it carved men into living statues of muscle and bone.
He reached for his Jalo, the worn brown jacket all laborers wore. The holographic tag on the shoulder blinked to life as he put it on, W-L N302. Wasteland Laborer. Number 302. His identity reduced to letters and digits.
Sage tapped his hand terminal, the small device buzzing to life. A blue hologram flickered above it, showing today's work assignment. His shoulders slumped slightly when he saw the location.
"Here we go again," he muttered under his breath, stuffing a few meager supplies into his pack. The same dried ration bars. The same dented water flask. The same knife he wasn't technically allowed to have but everyone carried anyway.
Damon waited by the door, watching his brother prepare. They'd done this dance a thousand mornings before. The routine never changed, only the work locations did. Outside, the slums were already waking - the sounds of shuffling feet and quiet voices filtering through the thin walls. Soon the overseers would start their rounds, checking that every man had reported to his assigned labor station.
Sage joined Damon at the door, adjusting his Jalo one last time. The holographic tag glowed faintly in the dim bunker light, marking him as just another number in the system. Damon's own tag - F-L N352 - glowed back at him from his own jacket. Farm Laborer. Number 352.
Two men. Two numbers. Another day in the slums of Astra.
They began their long walk to Daxin.
The distance wasn't impossible, two miles, maybe less, but in the slums, every step felt heavier. There were no transports, no vehicles, not even a rusted bike to ease the journey. The Matriarchs made sure of that. Technology was kept scarce here, doled out in just enough scraps to keep the slums functioning, but never enough to give men real power. Too much tech meant ideas. Ideas meant rebellion. And rebellion meant death, or worse.
Over the centuries, there had been attempts. Men with fire in their hearts and steel in their hands had tried to rise up, to break free. None succeeded. The Matriarchs made examples of them. Some were skinned alive, their flesh displayed as warnings. Others were locked in the Pits, where they screamed until their voices gave out. The lucky ones were simply erased, their names forgotten, their existence wiped clean from history.
Damon walked in silence beside Sage, his boots kicking up dust from the cracked road. Around them, the slums stretched endlessly, rows upon rows of cramped bunkers, their metal walls scorched by the sun. The air smelled of sweat and smoke, of rust and rotting food. It was a place of survival, not living.
A few men lingered outside their shelters, trading what little they had, scrap metal, stolen tools, sometimes even their own bodies, just for an extra ration bar. Others watched with hollow eyes, too broken to care. Somewhere nearby, a fight broke out, the sound of fists hitting flesh echoing between the bunkers. No one intervened. Turning a blind eye was the only way to stay alive.
Damon clenched his jaw. None of this was right.
He glanced at Sage, who walked with his head down, his shoulders tense. They had been born into this world, raised on stories of men's failures, taught to accept their place. But Damon couldn't. Every day, the injustice burned deeper.
The Matriarchs called this order. They called it peace. But Damon knew the truth. This wasn't peace, this was a slow death and one day…one day, he would find a way to change it.